


Snugs, or Snake Hugs

by lyricwritesprose



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale Has A Panic Attack, Deep Pressure for Panic Attacks, Gen, Panic Attacks, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), This fic was written for the "Wiggle On" zine but didn't get in so I'm putting it up here instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24273478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricwritesprose/pseuds/lyricwritesprose
Summary: Aziraphale has a panic attack.  Crowley has a remedy—but it's one he's hesitant to use.
Comments: 36
Kudos: 241





	Snugs, or Snake Hugs

**Author's Note:**

> I am grateful to several people on the Soft Good Omens discord server for having a look over this and talking to me about panic attacks and why deep pressure works to dispel them (for some people; everyone is different). Any mistakes remaining are mine.
> 
> As I stated in the tags, this is something I wrote with the idea of submitting it to the "Wiggle On" zine, but I didn't get in, so I'm putting it up here instead.

Crowley didn't notice the danger for a moment. He was used to looking for external threats, and the human was just a human. A human making trouble at Pride, but Aziraphale was dealing with that, as he always did. Stepped between the man and his blue-haired daughter and started defusing the situation.

The only thing was, they were in America. Attending Pride with Warlock.

Which meant that the man had an American accent.

He was also tall and square-jawed, with a nice suit. And condescending.

It didn't occur to Crowly that he could easily picture the man saying  _ Shut your stupid mouth and die already _ until he caught the distinct scent of distress from Aziraphale.

He clicked his fingers, hopefully sending the man to a public bathroom somewhere in the New York subway system, and got in front of Aziraphale, and took him by the shoulders. “Angel.”

Aziraphale, Crowley could feel through the skin contact, was shaking very slightly. And he was wearing a smile that didn’t meet his eyes, a polite smile that said desperately,  _ if I can keep this courteous and pleasant nothing bad will happen to me. _

_ “Angel. _ Talk to me.”

“I’m just being a bit silly,” Aziraphale said, and his voice had the slight tremor of someone who was forcing it to come out level by brute strength. “I apologize for this, my dear, I didn’t mean to—”

Crowley bared his teeth and pulled the space-time continuum sideways. Everything froze. Everything went silent.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Aziraphale said. He was still shaking.

“You  _ don’t,” _ Crowley said, “apologize for this. This isn’t your fault. I should have seen it coming, I should have realized—” He hadn’t protected Aziraphale. Unacceptable.

“It’s  _ nothing,” _ Aziraphale insisted. “It’s just a, a sort of wobble, I just, there are some ways of being addressed, some ways of being talked to, that I—” His face crumpled and he stopped trying to hide the shakes. “I’m so  _ sorry.” _ It came out as a sob.

“No.” Crowley moved forward and put his arms around Aziraphale. “No. No sorries. Absolutely not.”

“But I—”

_ “No. _ What do you need, Aziraphale? What do you need me to do?”

“I don’t—I’m not—holding me, that’s, that’s—”

“Good or bad?”

“Good! Definitely good. But—if it were  _ moreso— _ I would like—something like the way you lie across me, when—”

Crowley thought about it and took a deep breath. “Angel.”

“Yes?”

“You have to tap out if I squeeze you too tight. Understand? I can break human bones when I do this. Don’t know about yours, but I assume that I could make you pretty uncomfortable by accident.”

Aziraphale nodded shakily.

Crowley changed. Serpent form, and not the small version he sometimes used. Large enough to reach his normal height when he reared up. More than large enough to kill a human.

He wrapped around Aziraphale. Pulled tight. Not even close to as tight as he  _ could _ constrict, but tight enough to put pressure on Aziraphale from all sides.

_ “Oh,” _ Aziraphale said. “Yes. That—that helps.” He took a breath, despite the pressure. “Do you suppose—a little bit more?”

Crowley hissed. He wasn’t always completely comprehensible to Aziraphale in this form, at least without a miracle. This time, though, Aziraphale seemed to understand him well enough.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley tightened his coils. Just a little bit.

“I assure you, you won’t hurt me, dearest.”

This time, Crowley hissed for much longer.

“I promise you, I will tap out if it gets too much for me.” His fingers brushed Crowley’s flank. “Like this.” He tapped his fingers on Crowley. “One tap for tighter, two taps to—to stop. I can take more pressure than this. I—I would rather like more pressure than this. If it’s all right with you.”

Crowley arched away from him so that he could look Aziraphale in the eye. He looked sincere. He looked more calm than he had been. This was doing him good, Crowley thought, even if it went against Crowley’s own instincts. Constriction was a way to  _ hurt _ people—a slow, frightening way to hurt people—

On the other hand, finding out that one of his darker, more terrifying abilities could help Aziraphale—that was a powerful feeling, and a good one.

Crowley tightened his coils.

Crowley could feel the shakes diminishing beneath his scales, Aziraphale’s breathing coming regularly rather than in gasps. Shallow breathing—well, it had to be shallow, the way Crowley was squeezing him—but regular.

Aziraphale tapped once. Once for tighter.

The only reason Crowley was willing to go this far was that Aziraphale didn’t actually have to breathe. Aziraphale was strong—he might be able to pull free of Crowley, right now, if he didn’t care about hurting Crowley—but nobody could breathe too well in a hold like this, superhuman muscles or no.

Crowley hissed. This time, it meant,  _ tap me when you want to get loose. Promise me. _

Aziraphale didn’t speak, but he nodded. And his face was serene.

No tremors underneath Crowley’s skin. Just the warmth of Aziraphale’s body, the soft, living feel of it. Crowley could feel Aziraphale’s heartbeat under his flank. He thought it was slowing.

They spent a while longer like that, if “while” had a meaning with time stopped like this. Finally, just when Crowley was considering unwinding and changing back to humanoid and asking Aziraphale if something was wrong, Aziraphale tapped twice, precisely and calmly, on Crowley’s scales.

Crowley slithered off of him, dropping to the ground like a coil of rope, and assembled himself into a person-shaped being again. “Are you all right?”

“Much better,” Aziraphale said, and he  _ sounded _ much better.

“I’m—” Crowley chose his words carefully. “Not sure why that worked.”

“Something about the pressure,” Aziraphale said. “It felt—tremendously safe. Loved. As if you were anchoring me to where I was.”

Crowley gave him a look. “Safe. You are the only person in the world who could possibly think constriction feels  _ safe.” _

“Constriction is an ugly word for it,” Aziraphale said. “It felt more like—not a hug, not exactly, but something very like. Something that you did because it made me feel better, because it helped me.” He made his voice quieter. “I trust you, Crowley. I trust you not to hurt me. You need to trust yourself more.”

“I—” Crowley looked away. “Shut up. Listen, can I collapse the time bubble now? Because it’s getting a little bit—”

“Of course! Of course. I’m sorry, my dear, I had—well, to be honest, I had completely forgotten about that, in the moment.”

Crowley clicked his fingers, and the wall of noise hit them both as the crowd reanimated.

“Wha—where did he  _ go?” _

That was a girl’s voice, high pitched, on the edge of frightened.

“Don’t worry about that, my dear,” Aziraphale said, turning around. Any trace of nervousness was gone, and he was in his element as the protector of Pride, carefully smoothing over the rough edges of what Crowley had done, letting the girl assure herself that nobody had  _ actually _ vanished from before her eyes, she had just looked away for a moment, that was all. “I don’t find that people of that sort do tremendously well with direct confrontation. Now, tell me. That individual—your father, I assume?”

The girl looked defiant. “I don’t feel like counting him as my dad anymore.”

“That’s your right,” Aziraphale said, “and it’s excellent that you can be brave enough to make that decision, but what I’m trying to determine is whether he has some legal power over you. Because there are things we can do about that, but it gets fiddly in spots. Let’s—here, there’s a bench free, why don’t you tell me about it? I’m sure I can do  _ something _ to help.”

He gave Crowley a glowing smile of thanks as he led the girl over to the bench.

Crowley stayed where he was for a moment, scanning the crowd. Chaotic, and always a bit worrying for that reason, but no threats that he could make out.

Of course, he hadn’t registered  _ human that looks like Gabriel _ as a threat.

Never mind. Nothing really bad had happened, and he would do better next time. And if there was a next time, he’d have another tool to use.

He wasn’t going to call it a snake hug, though. That was just ridiculous.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Snug](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26554768) by [PinkPenguinParade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkPenguinParade/pseuds/PinkPenguinParade)




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